


a little mystery

by acroamatica



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Background Character Death, Hux smokes, M/M, This is kind of dark, ain't we got fun, but also sort of funny, descriptions of violence, hux is not a good person, lawyer AU, ren is probably a serial killer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 03:55:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6737176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acroamatica/pseuds/acroamatica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone may or may not be trying to frame Hux for murder. He's too busy with his caseload to care. And yet... the possibilities are intriguing. And he'd really like to know what's become of Kylo Ren, who may or may not be his boyfriend, and may or may not work for his boss, and may or may not be home tonight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a little mystery

**Author's Note:**

> _Lawyers enjoy a little mystery, you know. Why, if everybody came forward and told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth straight out, we should all retire to the workhouse._  
>  \- Dorothy L. Sayers
> 
> This one is for [Alyssa](http://crashwong.net/), without whom I don’t think I would even be in this fandom, and who makes me grin every day. <3
> 
> Huge (HUGE) thanks to [hux-you-up](http://hux-you-up.tumblr.com/) for legal advice, which helped make Hux a crooked lawyer, but not a bad one, and for taking the cleaver to my run-ons.

Hux is smoking in his office, with the sliding doors to his little balcony open and letting in warm air and sunshine, when Detective Sergeant Poe Dameron walks in. 

“Good afternoon, Hux,” Dameron says politely. Hux likes that about Dameron: he’s polite. He always has been, but is especially so since that time Hux short-circuited a kidnapping attempt that had very nearly seen Dameron dead. Hux had tipped off his partner Finn to his location, and that was enough to win Dameron’s gratitude, and more assumptions of good faith than anyone had ever made about Hux before. 

Hux hadn't meant them to kill him; the orders had been just to rough him up and scare him, see if he'd talk. Dameron was in on a lot of police business. But some people had gotten enthusiastic. Hux has made it clear what he thought about that. It won't happen again. And now he has a pet Detective Sergeant who sometimes makes himself more useful than obstructive. 

Dameron has a manila envelope with him today. He pulls an 8x10 glossy out of it, slides it across the desk. “Know anything about this?” he says, wearily. 

It’s a sign of respect that Dameron is doing this in Hux's office, rather than calling him down to the station, so Hux does him the return courtesy of actually looking. 

It’s a face he knows. Knew. The quantity of blood around it suggests the past tense might be more accurate.

“Han Solo’s dead?” Hux says, evenly.

“You figure it out,” Dameron says, and puts the photo away.

“I hadn't heard,” Hux says. This is something of a surprise, frankly. Hux has a lot of friends and he thinks they might have thought it relevant to tell him that the District Attorney was dead.

Hux taps the ash off the end of his cigarette, into the crystal ashtray by his left hand. “You shouldn't smoke in here,” Dameron says. “You're breaking half a dozen bylaws at least, you know.”

Hux is faintly nettled, but doesn't bother showing it; he stands and walks over to the open doorway, leaning on the doorframe with the tip of one loafer brushing the concrete deck. “There,” he says, “I’m outside. And I don't think bylaws apply to senior partners. I spend enough time in this office I'm fairly sure it legally qualifies as a second home.” He takes a long drag, and makes sure to blow the smoke back into the office before he continues. “And I don't know anything about Solo.”

Dameron raises an eyebrow.

“I _don't_.” Hux sighs. “Not even anything that would be covered by lawyer-client privilege - not that I could tell you that anyway.”

“You didn't like him much,” Dameron says. Hux thinks he's trying to look shrewd.

“Everyone knows that,” Hux says dismissively. “Nor did he like me.”

“True,” says Dameron, “but he's dead, and you’re not, which puts a different spin on the situation.”

Hux shrugs. “Well, it does _not_ change the fact that I have no information that can possibly help you.”

Dameron sighs, and stands up. “Thanks for seeing me, anyway. And if anything does come up, you know where to find me.”

“I certainly do,” Hux says, and waves at him with his cigarette as he shuts the door behind him.

Once Dameron is safely past Phasma's desk and out into the lobby, Hux sits back down. He stubs out the end of the cigarette, thinks about lighting another and doesn't. He may be part of the team defending Big Tobacco at the moment, but that doesn't mean he thinks they're healthy. But they keep him calm and awake, and he needs that enough that it's worth the damage they do him.

Everything in his life is like that. The late nights at the office, apart from being an excellent alibi, power the cases that at least outwardly fund the penthouse and the sleek black sportscar. And the cases keep him in touch with his friends, and help him make new ones. It is quite amazing how many people have need of a good criminal lawyer, and Hux most certainly is that, even though (or perhaps because) he is also a good criminal. It's why Snoke chose him as 2IC - the unparalleled usefulness of someone who absolutely never gets his hands dirty, but can always lay hands on someone who will. 

It's worked out well for Hux, all things considered. The money is nice. The power is very nice indeed. And there are side benefits, he reminds himself. He wonders if Kylo will be home tonight.

Kylo Ren is another of Snoke's pets, the head of a small band of mercenaries with a very interesting collective skill set. Hux knows for a fact it extends to grand larceny, wire fraud, grievous bodily harm, kidnapping, and arson. Ren's particular specialty was what had brought him into Hux's orbit, late one afternoon several months ago, in a suit that didn't entirely fit or do much to hide the dangerous size of him. 

“Snoke says you're defending me,” he had said, by way of greeting.

“Am I.” Hux had gestured to his visitors’ chairs, and Ren had sat, hunching in on himself slightly. He had terrible posture.

“Here's the retainer fee.” Ren had extracted a bundle of cash from a pocket - how crude. 

Hux had waved it away. “Write me a cheque. This firm keeps rigorous accounts, I am pleased to say.”

“Fine,” Ren had said irritatedly, “but I can't pay you today, then.”

“Tomorrow,” Hux had said, “will do. If Snoke says I’m to take you on, I will. Now what is it I have to convince a jury you didn’t do?”

“The charges are going to be five counts of murder in the first degree,” Ren had said. “And probably a bunch of other things. And I didn’t do it.”

Hux had leaned back in his chair. “Oh, all right. For a moment there I thought you were going to ask me for something _difficult_.”

It had been as simple as murder trials ever were. Hux loves reasonable doubt - _loves_ it. He would get the phrase tattooed on him somewhere were that the sort of thing he did. And Ren had been courteous enough to commit the crimes (which he, of course, absolutely had not done, not the least bit) in a manner that left such a quantity of reasonable doubt that Hux had cakewalked his way through the trial. He’d gotten Ren off with room to spare.

Ren had promptly repaid the favour, on his knees in Hux’s chambers. After that, it had seemed only reasonable to invite him home for further direct examination.

Somehow, after that, he just hadn’t left. Hux swears he never gave Ren a key. (He is aware that he probably didn’t, but all the same, Ren has one.) He also swears he never asked him to stay, but that isn’t strictly true; there had been an explicit invitation after Phasma had fielded a call from the hospital and Hux had discovered that for whatever reason, Ren had put him down as his emergency contact. He’d been shot, but the bullet had been small-calibre and had gone through him as cleanly as it could have, and mostly what he needed was a safe, warm and clean place to stay while he recovered. Hux had had to admit he had no idea if Ren actually had any other place to live. Certainly, he had thought, wherever it was, it wouldn’t measure up to Hux’s penthouse. So he’d formally taken in the stray, and Ren had slowly become Kylo, and Hux doesn’t really know how that happened other than gravity and entropy.

Kylo is not the easiest person Hux has ever lived with, though not the worst either. It’s like having a giant black cat; at first he had slept all the time, most of the day, surfacing only for meals and the occasional wash when Hux could no longer stand him. Now that he’s recovered, he does pretty much as he pleases, walking by his wild lone. Hux is never sure when he’ll actually be home; he vanishes for days or weeks on end, with no explanation, and turns up again with new bruises he won’t explain either. Kylo doesn’t talk much, which suits Hux fairly well because neither does he. He’s pretty, and moody, and unpredictable.

Sometimes he thinks Kylo hates him. It makes the sex more interesting.

Sometimes he thinks Kylo loves him. But he tries not to think that, because it would complicate things to such a degree if he did, and it’s easier if his maybe-boyfriend is just not something he has to think about. Kylo’s home, or he’s not; they fuck, or they don’t; Hux gets takeout Thai and watches TV and reads up on precedents either way.

When Hux gets home that night with his usual Wednesday pad see ew and green curry, he notes that Kylo’s beat-up black duffel bag is missing from what Hux has reluctantly come to think of as his side of the bed. He hasn’t actually seen Kylo for a couple of days now, but the bag was there, and now it is not, and that suggests that he’s going to be away for a while. Perhaps Snoke has sent him off on some errand.

Hux has tried asking Snoke, once or twice in the past, what Kylo was up to when he vanished, phrasing it vaguely enough that he hoped it didn’t suggest he was too interested in what Snoke’s other favourite was doing. But either he hadn’t given a convincing enough reason to need to know, or Snoke just didn’t feel like telling him, and it had all added up to being told that he didn’t require that information, which is a phrase that irks Hux at the best of times. Kylo could be anywhere from Baltimore to Brazil and until Snoke decides it matters to Hux, he won’t be told.

Which is fine. It isn’t like he _needs_ Kylo. He always eats all the good bits out of the curry before Hux gets any anyhow, and his taste in mindless television is awful.

Hux gets out the good brandy, since Kylo isn’t there to drink it like it’s $10 vodka. He pours himself a tidy glassful, which he raises to the ceiling, remembering the face in Dameron’s photo.

Solo had been a worthy adversary. Perhaps too worthy. Troublesome, even. He’d known Hux was up to something, and it had always seemed to irritate him that he couldn’t pin down exactly what. Hux had been very careful to make sure that he couldn’t, because having the DA snooping around in one’s affairs is uncomfortable no matter how innocent one can reasonably claim to be, but he had always nursed a private and unhappy suspicion that Solo would one day be capable of unmasking him.

He won’t, now, Hux supposes, and that is a relief. But he is man enough to admit that he will miss the challenge of going up against Solo’s pugnacious and idiosyncratic courtroom style. No-one else has ever called him a slimy little twerp on the record. (Hux had objected, of course, and it had been sustained by the judge, who had had quite enough of the whole thing by then and had nearly thrown them both out for contempt. But he will be proud until his last day on this earth that he made the DA lose his cool to such a degree.)

So, to Han Solo, then; to the one man who got under Hux’s skin more than anyone else, and vice versa; to an old and venerable, cranky and clever stirrer-up of hornets’ nests; to someone Hux had always rather thought, had he been a better person, he might have become someday. But he doesn’t have Solo’s inbuilt faith that the person in the right should win; if he had, he’d never have had a career at all. And after all, as Dameron had said: Solo is dead. And Hux is not.

He drinks, to Han Solo, and to not being dead.

\----

It’s about a week before Dameron is back in his office. Hux is less glad to see him this time, mostly because the case with Big Tobacco is picking up steam and their court date is coming up much too quickly. They’ve drawn Justice Leia Organa, which is the worst luck; Solo had never liked Hux, but Organa _hates_ him. He’s never won a case with her on the bench, except by the outright will of a jury, and even then, the outcome has never been what he wanted. She seems to delight in thwarting him. He’s committed himself already to taking a lower profile on the case; frankly, it’s Mitaka’s specialty, and he and Phasma and Unamo and Thanisson would do just fine without Hux, but Snoke wants a senior partner involved to oversee things. So he’s still on it, and he has a _lot_ to do if he plans on being sharp enough to keep Organa at bay. It’s a blessing Kylo hasn’t been home. Hux himself has only made it back to the apartment to shower and sleep. He’s fairly sure that’s more than Mitaka has even managed; he’s seen the sleeping bag tucked under his desk.

But here’s Dameron, standing in his doorway, so Hux invites him in like some sort of law-enforcement vampire.

“You have to give me something, Hux,” he says, as he sits heavily in Hux’s visitor chair.

“Certainly,” Hux says blandly, and pulls his pack of cigarettes from his top drawer, waving them at Dameron. “Here. Have one - _do_ you even smoke? I can’t recall.”

“I don’t,” Dameron says. Hux does in fact know this, but it is always best to offer the courtesies one knows the other party will not take one up on.

“Pity,” says Hux, and takes one for himself. He’s got the feeling he’s going to need it. “That’s actually all I had to give you, unless you would like me to ask Phasma if she might be willing to fetch something?” Technically Phasma is a full associate, and doesn’t do that sort of thing anymore except for him, and that only because he was her mentor when she started and she likes him, but he knows she thinks Dameron is pretty and she might be convinced.

“Does she have answers?” Dameron says.

_Probably,_ Hux thinks, but doesn’t say it.

“What answers did you want?” Hux says, as he lights his cigarette.

Dameron leans forward. “There have been three more deaths,” he says. “San Tekka. Celia Tarkin. Nien Nunb.”

“I am sorry to hear it.” Hux takes a long drag, and exhales towards the ceiling. “But again, I must ask, what could possibly make you believe I know anything about any of them?”

Dameron looks at him like one or the other of them must be stupid. “Your old law professor, your main rival from law school, and the judge who threw out a case of yours last year. It’s just really interesting to me how all of these people have some connection to you, Hux.”

“Interesting it might be, but it certainly isn’t enough to count as evidence.” Hux narrows his eyes at Dameron. “Nor will you find anything to connect me, apart from the fact that I knew all three. I’ve seen neither Tarkin nor Tekka in ten years at least, and Nunb was known for his short temper and his habit of throwing out anything he thought was wasting his time. I’m hardly the only aggrieved party. I know a lot of people, Detective Sergeant, and I can’t imagine it’s a good use of police resources to come running up here every time one of them meets an untimely end.” The real reason occurs to him then, and though it would be more prudent to leave it, he speaks, because Dameron is annoying him: “You have no leads at all, do you.”

The look on Dameron’s face is answer enough - there’s a lot of anger under that hard-fought veneer of patience. “I would welcome anything you could contribute, Hux,” he says, through teeth that appear not to be gritted only by the greatest of willpower.

Hux finds he feels sorry for him. “You should have taken the cigarette,” he says. “They’re quite relaxing once you get into the habit.”

Dameron sighs, and leaves.

Hux absolutely does not have time for it, not this week, but he’s been putting off a meeting with one of his other clients, who is currently behind bars and plotting an appeal. He arranges to go out for visiting hours, a two-hour round trip which would be so much better spent doing literally anything else, and he can _see_ Organa’s face, how she’ll look when she bangs down the gavel, like she could crush him under it. But he’s becoming increasingly curious, and as unpleasant as Jabba is, and as little as Hux wants to indulge the idea that there might be grounds for appeal in his human trafficking conviction, the man _knows things_.

It is, as it turns out, a waste of three hours. Jabba has nothing to offer Hux, though the news of the deaths has filtered back to the prison and there are a number of people who don’t regret the loss of Han Solo at all. One or two have tried to imply they or their organisations had something to do with it. Jabba is unfortunately a very sharp judge of character, though, and has ruled all of them out as wishful boasting. So Hux takes hopeless notes on his new appeal directions (nobody will ever let Jabba out, not even if Jesus himself came down from heaven to proclaim his innocence), asks him to keep his ear to the ground, and goes home annoyed and tired.

He’s so annoyed, in fact, that he does something he normally has more sense than to do: he calls Snoke’s office to arrange a meeting.

Snoke is the one who calls the meetings, not Hux; he is aware he is lucky that he has the convenient excuse of the upcoming trial to trade on or Snoke probably would have frozen him out for his presumption.

As it is, Snoke doesn’t bother hiding the fact that he is displeased with Hux, and is thus very much less than helpful. 

“Dameron is making a nuisance of himself,” Hux says. “I am growing tired of him implying that I must have something to do with this when I know nothing about it.”

“You know this is your own fault.” Snoke is implacable. “I thought you should have let him die, frankly; that he returns to you now hoping for crumbs is the way of things. But if you really do know nothing about it, then you are perfectly safe, are you not?”

“I would _like_ to know,” Hux says. “None of my sources have been at all useful, which is unlike them. Usually we’re the only people who can operate cleanly enough that neither the police nor the underworld have any idea. But I didn’t order any of this, even as it looks more and more like I did. _Was_ it us?”

Snoke glares at him. “What use would it be, me telling you, when you have the impenetrable shield of legitimate ignorance? I cannot see how, if it were in fact our operation, that would be a sensible gambit. At any rate, all I will tell you is that I have not ordered these deaths; and I would recommend for the sake of the organisation you claim to hold dear that you leave the digging up to Dameron, especially since he is not doing very well at it, and keep your own hands well out of the muck. Now go and do some real work.”

“Yes, sir,” Hux says resentfully, and goes back to his own office.

The problem is that Snoke is right. It’s quite obvious. But it’s also quite infuriating. Hux doesn’t _like_ not knowing things. And until Kylo gets home, he also has no outlet for the growing frustration, apart from trying not to snap at the rest of the team, which he isn’t very good at not doing at the best of times.

Within a week, Mitaka has developed a tic in his right eyelid, and he thinks Thanisson is avoiding him.

Privately, he has begun to despair - there is no way they can patch all the holes in their case to Organa standards in the time they have left. They are all deliriously tired, and he thinks about sending them all home for a nap, wondering if that might be a better use of their time.

But then Phasma comes in with a stunned smile from ear to ear, and he’s glad they’re all there to confirm that she actually says the words he hears: “The trial’s been postponed. Organa’s stepped down, so we have at least until they find a new judge.”

Unamo sits down rather hard on the floor. “Say that again,” she requests. “That last bit.”

“Organa’s off our case,” Phasma repeats.

“Phasma, I could kiss you,” Unamo says dizzily. Phasma grins, bends down and pecks her on the cheek.

“I’m going home to sleep,” Mitaka says. “I’ll see you all tomorrow when my will to live has regrown itself a little more.”

“I want,” Thanisson says slowly, “a fucking beer. Or twelve. Can I do that?”

“I think I can allow everyone to have the afternoon off,” Hux agrees. Not least because he also wants a nap, and a drink, and possibly even a kiss should his terrible maybe-boyfriend have turned up by the time he gets home.

It is while he is sliding a few files into his attaché case to take home with him that Dameron arrives. He looks like Hux felt an hour ago, and he’s brought Finn with him this time, who also looks to be in a terrible mood.

“Gentlemen,” Hux says. “I was just about to leave, you nearly missed me.”

“Listen, Hux,” says Finn, who is not as polite as Dameron. “We need answers.”

Hux sits down. This is going to take a while, he can just tell. Especially if Dameron has brought Finn along to play Bad Cop to his Good Cop. Finn has never trusted Hux as much as Dameron does, and the fact that Dameron thinks that will be useful says a lot about how well their investigation is going.

Finn leans on his desk, trying to loom over him ominously. “We’ve got four more dead people, and Justice Leia Organa is missing. What do you know about it?”

Hux shakes his head. “I didn’t even know that much, though we had just heard that an upcoming case of ours she was to be hearing had been postponed and reassigned to a different judge. I do hope she’s found safe.”

“How can you look at me and tell me you don’t know?” Finn says. He’s so angry Hux almost wants to laugh. “Eight dead, one missing, their only connection being that you hated all of them - you don’t have _anything_ you want to tell us?”

Hux looks at Dameron instead of Finn when he answers. “Frankly, this is becoming tiresome - I know nothing more than I did the last time you asked me this question, and I’m not sure why you persist on treating me as a suspect when I’ve certainly done nothing. I have been at this office every day for the last fortnight and the CCTV will attest to it, as will multiple witnesses; I am not sure why I should have to, but I will even take a polygraph test if it will help you to discard the completely ridiculous idea that I am hopping about the country committing murders by night, then returning to my comfortable office by day.”

“We don’t think you’re killing them,” Dameron says, more calmly than Finn. “Actually, have a look at this photo.”

It’s a blurry, grainy, low-res CCTV still - a large dark shape, nothing to indicate an identity, hooded, robed, gloved and masked. “This,” says Dameron, “is from one of the scenes, and is the only person we’ve been unable to identify. Nobody even remembers having seen him, for all that he ought to stand out. Look like anyone you know?”

“How could I tell?” Hux says, and it’s a valid question. “For all I know that could be the King of Sweden. Perhaps you should go and question _him_.”

Dameron sighs, and puts the photo away. “Come on,” he says to Finn, so frustratedly that Hux does feel a little bad for him. But it’s not Hux’s fault they can’t do their jobs, nor is he about to make something up so they go away happy.

There is something about that black shape that lingers in his mind - perhaps it’s the fact that it could be literally anyone - but whoever it is, he thinks, they are either trying to do him a favour, or trying to frame him for multiple murders. Which is certainly food for thought, either way.

Kylo is still not home. Hux thinks about calling him, wonders vaguely what it would be like if he was fucking someone normal who kept their phone on them all the time, and doesn’t. But he does have that drink, and almost ten hours of sleep, at the end of which he feels positively reborn.

He attacks the case with verve, and ends up working late - it’s become a habit at this point, and he has few enough good habits amongst the bad that he is loath to let go of any. Phasma stays with him, although the rest go home. He thinks she’s trying to make partner this year, and he approves. He approves even more when she goes out and comes back with sushi for both of them and a fresh pack of darts for Hux, who has gone through the last of his. He makes a mental note to put a recommendation on her personnel file.

They’ve turned on the TV in the lobby, mostly for company, and it’s playing the 11 o’clock news now.

“Tonight’s breaking story,” says the woman in the sedate green suit. “Justice Leia Organa has been found, alive but injured, after a three-day ordeal. Police say that an anonymous tip led them to the warehouse where Justice Organa was found tied up, with significant head injuries and no memory of her attacker or attackers. She has been transported to hospital, where she remains in critical condition; however, doctors believe that in time she will make a full recovery. The police investigation continues.”

“I suppose she’ll be off for a while,” Hux says, and Phasma gives him a long look. “What? I know it’s ghoulish to delight in the suffering of others, but I’m a senior partner, Phasma, and this law firm will prosper by her absence. She’s not dead. I can’t be entirely sad.”

“It is awfully convenient,” Phasma says thoughtfully.

“Don’t you start.” He bumps her shoulder with his own, and smiles at her. “I may be financially well-off, but you know I am very well aware of the going rate for hitmen of quality after that Ren case, and I could never afford this.”

Phasma laughs. “Fine. When you sell the Porsche, I’ll worry.”

The next day is Friday. This is normally irrelevant to Hux, but with the trial delay, and all they got done the night before, by the time it gets to the late afternoon he is actually wondering if he might be able to have a weekend.

With the afternoon mail delivery, comes a confused mailroom clerk - “I don’t know where this came from,” he says, “but it was in your office pigeonhole and it has your name on it.”

He hands Hux a plain white envelope. Sure enough, there is no stamp and no return address - all it says on it is “Hux”, in typescript, and the back flap is sealed with tape.

Something about it, he thinks, suggests that perhaps he should open it alone.

He waits until it’s just him and Phasma again. As soon as he can see that she’s busy and unlikely to wander in, he takes his letter opener and a cigarette with him to his balcony, where he slits the letter’s fat belly.

Three pages, folded over four times apiece, slightly crooked; the papers are creased and rumpled like they’ve done some travelling. On them, on all three of them, are names - just names, one after the other. They are also typed, spaced out, a half-dozen lines between each one, to allow for a brownish-red thumbprint under each name. Every thumbprint is different.

There are many more names, he thinks to himself, than Dameron and Finn had even learnt. Every one of them is one he knows - one he has cursed, perhaps only to himself, but perhaps where someone had heard.

On the last page, the last name is Leia Organa’s. Her thumbprint is there too. 

Underneath that, a couple of inches from the bottom:

_happy birthday._

There is no signature.

Hux looks at it for a long time, long enough to commit the list indelibly to memory. He does not doubt it is the only copy. And then he tears the pages and the envelope into strips, and sets them alight with the end of his cigarette, letting them flame in the ashtray and crushing the ashes until the paper is nothing but dust.

When he gets home, that night, there’s a pile of black clothes on his bedroom floor, next to a battered black duffel bag. Kylo is asleep, naked, sprawled facedown on the bed; his hair is damp and smells like Hux’s expensive shampoo, and he appears to have stolen Hux’s pillow.

Hux sits down on Kylo’s side of the bed, in the space left free between his arm and his thigh. Kylo stirs, sort of: throws his arm over Hux’s lap, then subsides again. 

“Mmh, you’re back,” he says into the pillow, which means he’s at the awake but boneless stage.

“I never told you it was my birthday today,” Hux says, very quietly.

“Found it out,” Kylo says. “I know a lot of things.”

“You do,” Hux agrees, and strokes Kylo’s flank. He’s warm. “You were gone a long time, though.”

Kylo rolls onto his side, and grins at Hux, lopsided and wicked. “You’re hard to shop for.”

“It’s just what I wanted,” Hux says, and leans down to kiss his terrible maybe-boyfriend ( _definitely boyfriend_ , says a little voice in the back of his head) hello.


End file.
